First of all, I get the impression that any source online that indicates that Buckethead's net worth is $8 million could be getting that number from all the same place. Who knows if that is even correct? I have no idea how much he is really worth, and frankly, it doesn't really matter, but many people have asked a lot of questions about how he makes money if any at all. This post may shed some light on that doubt.
1. What does net worth even mean?
A person’s net worth is calculated by adding all of their assets together and subtracting the amount of their total debts. For example, if I buy a house that is worth $5,000, and pay a $1,000 down payment (so I still owe $4,000), then my net worth is $1,000 (subtract $4,000 worth of debt from the $5,000 worth of assets). So if Buckethead has $8 million in net worth, then he may have a lot more assets along with a few debts as well, but it al equals out to being $8 million. If you are calculating your net worth in your head and are getting a negative number, don’t worry. That’s fairly normal, especially for college students. In time the number starts climbing, especially if you buy a house.
2. How much Buckethead receives from Pikes.
According to music.bucketheadpikes.com, at the end of November 2018 there were 185,226 total digital downloads across all of Buckethead’s 275 pikes. At the end of the June 2019 Pike Sale (so a period of close to 7 months) there were 234,381 total digital downloads. So in a little over 6 months, Buckethead got 49,155 extra digital downloads! That is a 25% increase in just 6-7 months, which is super good especially since Buckethead Pikes have been around since 2011!
3. How much Buckethead receives from concerts.
This one is a little trickier. Based on my previous Monte Carlo simulations (a post I uploaded a few months ago) there were approximately 58,143 total individuals who attended concerts during Bucketheads 2019 tour. The average concert ticket was $25. Multiplying 25 by 58,143 gets you a total of $1,453,565. Whoa!! That’s like, $1.5 million bucks!! Well, Buckethead doesn’t get ALL of that… in fact, he only gets about 22% of it. In my crappy research, I found out that for musicians like Buckethead (whose concerts don’t usually get over 1,500 attendees, but are located all across the country) 12% of the total income goes to the venue. 75% of what is left of that money goes to traveling costs and paying management, etc. The rest goes to the performer. If you keep track of the math, then about 22% of the total ticket sales go to the performer, which in the case of the 2019 tour is about $317,967. Phew!!
There is a function that can allow you to calculate how much Buckethead himself probably made each year he toured. Each solo performance generated about $5,711.80, so if you multiply that by the number of shows Buckethead played in a year, then you can see how much he has made ever since he started touring solo! If you decide to play it safe (like me) and only start from his post-GnR 2004 (when he had a decent-sized following), then you can find that since 2004, Big B has made close to $3 million ($2,970,136.00!)
DISCLAIMER: I want to make it clear to the world that Chinese Democracy was not as successful as people hoped it would be. Yes, it still sold millions of copies, but it also cost a lot to produce. There is a good chance that Buckethead did not make a whole lot from this album.